The Gilded Age 1870-1900

Presidents of the Gilded Age

Ulysses S. Grant

1869-1877Rutherford B. Hayes

1877-1881

James Garfield 1881 Chester A. Arthur

1881-1885

Grover Cleveland 1885-

1889 and 1893-1897 Benjamin Harrison

1889-1893

William McKinley

1897-1901

Term comes from a book written about the time period by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in 1873.

“The Gilded Age”

“Gilded” is when something is golden/beautiful on the surface but is really cheap/worthless underneath.

Period when corruption existed in society but was overshadowed by the wealth of the period.

Abuses in business and government caused problems for immigrants, laborers, and farmers.

Problems with Philosophy

Tariffs

Railroad Land Grants

Federal subsidies

Blame the poor

Laws written for & by rich elite men

Racism

Force used to benefit corporations

No competition

Henry Ford

Assembly Line

Samuel Morse

Telegraph (1837)

Guglielmo Marconi

Radio

Christopher Sholes Typewriter 1867

Wright BrothersAirplane (1903)

Wright Brothers on 1903 Flight

Technological Innovations

Alexander Graham Bell

Telephone 1876

Alexander Graham Bell

Thomas A. Edison

▪ Phonograph 1877

▪ Electric light bulb

1879

▪ Perfected the light

bulb in 1880

▪ Motion picture

▪ Organized power

plants

▪ Established first

research lab

Thomas A. Edison

George Eastman

Camera (1885)

Inventors/Inventions

Edison & Phonograph 1870

Industry & Mechanization

Standardized parts

Mass production

Routine labor

Low wages

De-skilled labor

Hierarchies

Technology

The Steel Industry’s Impact on America

The Bessemer Process, developed around 1850, injected air into molten iron to remove impurities and make steel-a lighter, more flexible, rust resistant metal.

Steel is used in railroads, farm equipment, canned goods.

Engineers use steel to create skyscrapers and longer bridges (Brooklyn Bridge)

Impact of the Railroad

National power

Centralized control

Trans-national markets

Nationwide distribution

Homogenization

Job creation & destruction

BenefitsStimulated growth of other industries (steel, iron, coal, lumber, glass).

Helped cities grow.

Helped increase westward expansion of America.

Standard time zones were created to get everyone on correct time.

CorruptionCharged much higher rates to western farmers.

Credit Mobilier Scandal 1868

▪Union Pacific

▪Fake construction company

▪Bribed members of Congress

▪Represented corruption of period.

Standard Oil Cartoon based on Ida B. Tarbell’s book-

The History of Standard Oil

The Rise of Big Business

Vertical Integration

A process in which a company buys out all of the suppliers. (Ex. coal and iron mines, ore freighters, rr lines)

Horizontal Consolidation

A process in which a company buys out or merges with all competing companies (JP Morgan bought out Carnegie steel and other companies)

Corporations

Andrew Carnegie U.S. Steel (1870s)

Industrialists who made a fortune in steel in the late 1800’s.

As a philanthropist he gave away some $350 million.

John D. Rockefeller Standard Oil (1880s)

Industrialists who made a fortune in the oil refining industry

▪Vertical & horizontal organization

▪Scientific management

▪Monopolies

J.P. Morgan

Industrialists who started U.S. Steel from Carnegie Steel and other companies.

Became 1st Billion Dollar Corporation.

Bailed out the U.S. economy on more than one occasion.

Trusts

A group of separate companies placed under the control of a single managing board.

Critics called these practices unfair and the business leaders “Robber Barons”

Social Darwinism & Laissez Faire

Theory of Capitalism

“Free markets” = no government intervention

Competition creates innovation and keeps prices low.

Individuals could improve condition.

Herbert Spencer

Distorted Charles Darwin’s “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest”.

A social & economic system where the poor were naturally poor, and the rich were naturally rich was natural.

Used Darwin’s theory to explain business.

Natural Selection, Survival of the Fittest

Government should not interfere.

Laissez-fairePolicy that US had followed since inception to not allow Government to interfere with business.

Captains of IndustryA positive idea that

industrial leaders

worked hard and

deserved their wealth.

Carnegie Hall

Carnegie Library

Vanderbilt University

Gospel of Wealth

Belief that the wealthy are “chosen by God” to be successful and were therefore responsible to look out for the well being of those less fortunate. Many Industrialist shared wealth although rarely through direct welfare. Started museums, universities and others.

Monopoly

Complete control of a product or service.

Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890

Law outlawing a combination of companies that restrained interstate trade or commerce; important to prevent monopolies.

Not initially enforced properly.

“What can I do when both Parties insist on kicking”

Passed by

Congress

in 1890 under

the presidency

of Benjamin

Harrison

Poor Working Conditions in the late 1800’s

▪Most factory workers worked 12 hour days, 6 days a week.

▪Steel mills often demanded 7 days a week.

▪No vacations, sick leave, unemployment compensation, or workers compensation for injuries on the job.

▪Children as young as 5 often worked as much as 12 or sometimes 14 hours a day, for as little as .$27 a day.

The Rise of Labor UnionsThe Purpose of a labor union was “strength in numbers.”

Attempted to gain better working conditions and pay.

The Knights of Labor

Was the first union to accept workers of all races and gender.

Pushed for 8 hour workday, equal pay for women, accepted skilled and unskilled workers

▪Accepted only skilled white males.

▪Won higher wages and shorter work weeks for its members.

▪Head of AFL was Samuel Gompers.

The American Federation of Labor (AFL)

Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) or Wobblies

Created in 1905, was a radical group of mostly unskilled workers who believed in socialism

Socialism

An economic or political philosophy that favors public (or social) control of property and income.

Setbacks for Labor Unions

Great Railroad Strike of 1877▪RR workers strike to protest wage

cut.

▪Violence erupted in many cities for a week.

▪President Rutherford B. Hayes sends in Federal Troops to put down strike.

ScabA worker called in by an employer to replace strikers.

Courts and Federal government often sided with business during the Gilded Age.

Haymarket Riot 1886

▪Workers protesting and holding demonstrations in Haymarket Square Chicago.

▪Speakers are socialist and anarchist.

▪Police arrive and bomb is thrown at police killing some and causing riot.

▪Public blames labor unions and views them as radical, violent, and mostly foreigners.

Homestead Strike-1892

Workers strike against Carnegie Steel plant.

Henry Frick was anti-union leader of plant.

Pullman Strike 1894

Railroad industry strike in which 120,000 striking railroad workers were stopped only by the intervention of the federal government.

Faces of America

Immigration and National Culture

1870-1910, 20 million immigrants

Southern & eastern Europe

Culture, language, religion, ethnicity

Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans

Chain Migration

Assimilation stripped people of their cultures, attacked diversity, and tried to make them into WASPs

Immigrant Life

Ethnic enclaves

Organizations and self-help

Language schools

Newspapers

Marriage

Employment

El Paso & Ciudad Juarez

Civil War

▪Texas Confederacy

▪James Magoffin-invade Mexico, annexed

▪French expelled 1867

El Paso del Norte

▪Name change in 1888

Zona Libre, open border, free trade.

El Paso and del Norte

1869: 750 voters, 580 Mex. Am.

County business in Spanish

1870s: Salt Wars

▪Native & Mexican ownership

▪Judge Charles Howard declared beds his

▪Shot Luis Cardis

▪Border conflict

▪White vigilantes, Texas Rangers went on rampage through lower valley.

EL Paso and Modernization

▪Southern Pacific Railroad entered 1881using Chinese laborers.

▪Agriculture

▪Mining up from Northern Mexico & Southern Arizona

▪Rapid growth of downtown business district

▪Northeastern wealth

▪School, sanitation system, streetcar service

Race and Class

Segundo Barrio & Chihuahuita

Mayor Joseph Magoffin 1881

◦ Decline of Mexican-American Political power

◦ “Clean up” Segundo Barrio

Segregated Schools (Aoy 1887)

Moved County Seat from San Elizario to El Paso, 1884

Isleta del Sur (Tiguas)

◦ Taxes, laws, rezoning, deeds, and land sales

Nativism

As American as apple pie

Anti-immigrant fears of non-northern European groups

Quasi-scientific

Racial purity & Anglo-Saxonism

Labor-based

1792 Naturalization Act

The New Immigrants

Between 1870 and 1920 twenty million Europeans, mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, came to America, Jews and Catholics.

Hundreds of thousands more came from Mexico, Caribbean, and China

Looked and sounded different than natives.

Nativism

Movement to ensure that native-born Americans received better treatment than immigrants

Russian Jews

1888 Puck Magazine cartoon about American businessmen encouraging immigration for cheap labor

which hurts Americans

Ellis Island

In New York harbor, where most European immigrants came to get processed

Angel Island

In San Francisco, where most Asians entered United States

Culture Shock

Melting Pot

Ports of Entrance

Chinese Immigration

1870 - 63,000 Chinese, most in California, 22% in Idaho

1930 - 470,000 in U.S 90% in West

Worked in railroads, mining, and service sector of cities

Anti-Chinese Nativism

1852 - Foreign Miners Tax

▪ Ineligible for citizenship due to 1790 law barring naturalization of “non-white” immigrants.

▪ Tax repealed by 1870 Civil Rights Act

1878: Denied citizenship due to race.

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act (laborers).

1888: “All Chinese”

1902: Renewed law

Exclusionary laws were passed on racial and economic basis to protect white businesses.

1878 - California Constitution Convention:

“Were the Chinese to amalgamate…it would be the most vile and degraded of our race…a hybrid of the most despicable, a mongrel of the most detestable that has ever afflicted the earth.”

John F. Miller

1880 - California barred marriage between whites and “negroes, mulattos, and Mongolians.”

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country. It was not lifted until 1943.

The Gentlemen’s Agreement 1907 was reached between the United States and Japan in which Japan agreed to restrict immigration to the U.S. and US wold end segregation laws against Japanese.

Political Cartoon depicting how Chinese immigrants workers

lived and regular American workers lived. Rats, Yummy!

Urbanization

Growth of industries, concentrated people and power in cities.

Industrialization pushed people off the land.

Technological advances: elevators, sewage, piped water, electricity, subways, electric streetcar (1888), refrigeration increased urbanization.

Problems of Rapid Urbanization

Three reasons cities grew in late 1800’s and early 1900’s:

1. New immigrants arrived in cities for work.

2. As farm machines replaced farmers they moved to cities.

3. African Americans left South after Civil War and came to Northern cities.

Cities and Populations

Foreign Born:

New York (40%)

Chicago (42%)

San Fran (45%)

El Paso (31%)

City Life

▪Fast Growth

▪Few social services or regulations

▪Tenement buildings

▪Settlement Houses

▪Multicultural & ethnically organized

Problems in the Cities

1. Housing shortages

Tenement : crowded apartment building with poor standards of sanitation, safety, and comfort.

2. Transportation struggled to keep up with growth.

3. Clean water was difficult to produce and to transport.

4. Waste and garbage removal was a challenge and often

neglected.

5. Fires were very common.

Great Chicago Fire 1871

San Francisco Earthquake 1906

6. Crime rose with urbanization.

Early Reforms to Solve Problems of Urbanization

►Settlement House

Community center organized to provide various services to urban poor

Hull House 1889 was the most famous settlement house established by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr.

►Social Gospel Movement Social reform movement that sought to fix social problems in the name of Jesus.

The Rise of Political Machines►Political Machines

A group of people that controlled the activities of a political party.

By giving voters services they needed, the machine won their vote and controlled city government.

►City Boss

“All Politics center around the Boss”

Was head of Political Machine and controlled jobs in police, fire, sanitation departments, and agencies that granted licenses to businesses.

They obtained money to fund large construction projects

►Political machines loved immigrants, Why?

Never voted, tried to sway votes by bribery, intimidation, and other means.

►Political machines used power to:

▪Rig elections

▪Become wealthy from kickbacks-illegal payments

▪Control police force to stay out of trouble.

“Boss Tweed” and Thomas Nast

►William “Boss” Tweed

City Boss of Tammany Hall Democratic Political Machine in New York City

►Thomas Nast

Political cartoonist who was critical of machines and Tweed

Corruption in GovernmentPatronage or Spoils System

Giving government jobs to loyal party workers or friends:

▪Were not qualified

▪Used position to get money from government (graft)

President James Garfield is assassinated by disappointed office seeker favoring Spoils System.

President Chester Arthur signs

Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883

Pendleton Civil Service Act 1883

Attempted to end Patronage/Spoils System

1. Creating the Civil Service Commission, which required appointed govt. officials to pass the Civil Service Exam to base jobs on merit instead of friendship.

2. Federal employees did not have to contribute to campaign funds.

3. Federal employees could not be fired for political reasons.

Chester A. Arthur signed

Pendleton Act into effect

Conclusion

Good & Bad impact of technology

Rise of National Corporations

New Business Structures

Social Darwinism

Immigration and Urbanization

Racism and Immigration Policy